We’re going direct.
Here’s why and what it means for you.
posted by Joel Korte
Hello, Joel Korte here.
We’ve made a pretty big decision. To some of you it will make no difference at all, but I believe it will end up being good news for (most) of the rest of you.
Going forward, we’ll be handling the sale of our pedals ourselves, direct-to-consumer.
This will take several months. What this means today:
We are no longer accepting any orders from dealers or distributors, but we are still going to fill all of the orders already in our books.
We'll be pausing the sale of pedals with outstanding dealer / distributor orders on our site until we're all caught up. You'll see rolling availability over the next few months as we make the transition, but from that point on chasebliss.com will be the spot for all online sales. We’ll let you know as each pedal becomes available.
This does not apply to any new releases we might have in this time frame, those will be available right away at chasebliss.com.
I’m going to use this piece to break it all down into chunks, including how that will affect you on a region-to-region basis. But I also filmed a video where I do my best to talk through it, and it’s probably a good idea to start there. It’s long, but even watching the first few minutes sets the tone.
What is direct-to-consumer?
We’ll be handling the sales, shipping, and support for our products personally.
This means you won’t find our pedals in stores or local dealers* anymore, and instead will use our website to buy them.
I know this might raise some concern for international customers, but we’ve got a plan and I think you will like it. Skip ahead if that’s all you care about, but I want to take some time to explain what led to this decision first.
*We’re not going to be absolutely rigid about this. We’re sticking with our existing distribution for Japan because they do so much for us and feel like an extension of Chase Bliss at this point. It’s possible we’ll do workshops and more personal things with some small, independent stores down the line. We aren't entirely sure who this will include yet. But we’ll be handling all online orders ourselves, and by-in-large this is the way going forward.
Why we’re doing this
1. Price
If there was one single thing that pushed me to this decision, it’s this: I couldn’t see any other way to go forward without raising our prices.
Which I know sounds crazy.
I won’t bore you with the details, but pretty much every part of our business has become more expensive for us over the last few years. But it just felt unacceptable. Our pedals are already expensive, and I also don’t want to compromise on the quality to save money.
Why direct-to-consumer helps.
When we sell our pedals to stores, we have to sell them at a discount. That’s how the stores make their share. In other words, we make more per-pedal on direct sales, so committing to that completely has the same benefit to us as raising prices but you don’t have to pay more.
2. Managing growth
I’ll be really transparent about this — I was starting to see a future where Chase Bliss would have to become something I don’t like in order to keep the business going.
This is connected to price and product development as well — it’s all connected I guess — but I think the moment it really hit me was that I realized if we had to hire any more staff I wouldn’t really be able to know them anymore. I would know their names and stuff of course, but not what they are up to. Does that make sense?
We’ve managed to keep things pretty loose and personal here, and it’s just essential to me. It has to feel good to work here.
Why direct-to-consumer helps.
It lets us to side-step that typical snowball effect of having to grow bigger and bigger to make things work.
3. Product development
I’ve noticed that when we talk about pedal ideas recently, there’s this new voice inside my head that does a lot of the talking. We’ll call him Business Joel. He talks about things like sales.
Actually that’s all he talks about.
We’re in a position right now where our pedals really have to do well every single time. Habit wasn’t a safe pedal to make, but if it had sold poorly we might have had to make some uncomfortable decisions. Like making a quick and easy pedal to balance things out.
We have never, ever done something like that before, and I never want to. And that’s the point.
Why direct-to-consumer helps.
It gives us so much more freedom on this side of things, more than we’ve ever had. We can just try things because we’re curious. That’s so nice to think about!! We’ll probably make a damn ring modulator because Charlie loves them and it makes me really happy that that’s an option now.
4. Availability
There will be more pedals for the people that want them.
When we make a batch of pedals right now, we immediately send more than half of them out to dealers and distributors. That felt really essential when I started Chase Bliss. It was essential — having our pedals out there so people could bump into them.
But it also means there’s a Habit sitting on a store counter somewhere that we could have sold to you.
On the one hand it doesn’t feel great to lose that organic encounter or the ability to find new customers, but it does feel good that we can get more pedals out to the people that are waiting.
Why direct-to-consumer helps.
Every pedal we make will be sold directly to someone who wants it now, instead of someone who might want it later.
5. Customer support
Last one, but a biggie for me.
I really like the idea that if anyone ever has a problem with one of our pedals, they’ll come right to us.
Even if there is no problem! Especially if there is no problem. Ask us how to use your Thermae better, whatever.
Ultimately, there aren’t that many of you buying our pedals. It’s genuinely interesting and it feels good to talk with you, and we’re at a scale where we can.
Why direct-to-consumer helps.
Now that we are the entire support network for our products, we’ll have to get better at it. Which is kind of exciting. Maybe a live chat thing or a hotline? I don’t even know if that’s possible, but that’s where my head is right now. I want our customers to know there are living, breathing people available to help them.
How it will affect you
All customers
In a few months, our website is now the place to buy our pedals. In the meantime, keep buying from your favorite dealer.
No-hassle 30-day returns.
When our dealer backlog is clear in several months, you likely won’t find Chase Bliss pedals at your local store anymore, including online. You’ll need to buy them at our website.
Customers within the U.S. and EU
Free shipping on all orders.
No customs or import fees on orders.
Repairs and service handled locally.
Other international customers
All customs and import fees are now handled at checkout, so you can see exactly what the final price is.
We’ll pay half of those import and duty fees.
Thank you
For hearing me out and caring about our company.
This is one of the bigger decisions I’ve made in my life, but I feel good about it. I think it will bring us closer to the people that use our pedals, and in most cases make it easier (and cheaper) to do that.
It’s a huge weight off my shoulders and I’m so excited about the freedom this gives us. We’re going to make some weird stuff.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.